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#11
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On Tue, 31 May 2005 11:30:25 +1000, Rod Speed wrote:
I do intend to make at least two copies of every burn if I do decide to go with DVD. What brands do you alternate between? I dont bother doing it by brand anymore. Just avoid the supercheap media now. I did do it by brand with CDs at one time, but found that I didnt lose any over time as long as I avoided the absolute bottom of the market so gave up bothering about the brand. Then again, I deliberately chose a liteon burner that has a reputation for reliable burns. I must confess that my cheap quality CD's from five years ago seem to be holding up well. But like you, I also choose a good CD writer, one of the Ricoh's 7060 I believe. I guess the writer is the most important part of the equation. Thanks for the media information. Just had the first dud for years and years, was getting low when a mate of mine was around, said that I was getting low and had him hand me a spindle of 50 from the lowest price operation in town to save me going out to get some. One of those was bad and the inner layer of the area burnt is noticeably poor, rather a wavy pattern in it, but only with some blanks. I always scan every CD with a surface scanner before committing it to archive. If a burn looks even slightly dubious, I get rid of it and burn another. But that only rarely happens, most burns are nearly perfect. I do use only 4x writes though to keep problems to a minimum. I've heard higher speeds can result in lower quality burns as the disc vibrates more during writing. Yes, as long as you arent prone to dropping things. Unfortunately my record isn't that good That is close to what I do separately to using CDs and DVDs too, basically write the critical stuff that I cant afford to lose to other drives on the local network of PCs. Yep, I do the same for stuff that is often updated, copy it across the network on a daily basis to another computer for safe-keeping. I wrote a quick script to automate the process. Apparently they are very reliable Dunno, you'll find virtually all of the hard drive manufacturers except samsung will only warranty externals for 1 year. I don't know if this is true, but I heard that this was done simply to reduce the massive numbers of warranties that hard disk manufacturers have to get a tag on. Hard disks are apparently so reliable these days that you can realistically expect them to last for years. This could all be an excuse of course, but I must confess, I haven't had all that many failures myself. I brought my WD hard disk because it was backed by a three-year warranty though just to be sure. and probably likely to outlast DVD's completely. Maybe, but I dont need that sort of long term reliability, essentially because I keep backing up everything that I care about at a decent rate. But I dont bother with photos or videos. I do have photos and videos. But the main point of why I'm considering DVD's now is that I'm becoming concerned about some of the lower quality discs I burned about five years ago. I'd prefer to be safe and burn newer copies of these discs to be sure. So I can either begin replacing older CD's on a 1 to 1 basis from the older ones I have, or I can replace the standard with DVD and do a copy of the entire collection. It's a renewal I'm looking at now and I'm wondering if I should go with DVD, or stick with CD for the foreseeable future. I currently use DVD+RW format most of the time with an ocassional use of DVD-R media so that if it turns out that one of the formats doesnt last as long as I would like, I will become aware of that while I still have at least one other format that hasnt yet started to show any sign of degradation. Good idea. I'll go with DVD-R and DVD+R to ensure I have some security against degradation. However, I find it unlikely that either +R or -R will become unsupported, most likely they'll both be supported under a new unified standard much like the old modem wars between K56Flex and X2. These two were unified under V90 of course. I handle that differently, once a particular format is passing its useby date, I have always got the data that matters on more modern media. So I dont have anything on floppy now and dont usually bother to even install a floppy drive in a system I assemble anymore. Well, I have old floppy's, but I never use them anymore, they were pretty unreliable as a backup medium anyway. Pendrives seem most likely to replace them I think. However, I don't think I'd build a system without a floppy just yet, I like the keep the option of having the device available, and there are always annoying things that need a floppy to work or boot with (like Dell drivers for example). Although you can probably get around it, I think it's less hassle to keep it. I dont however generate a significant volume of stuff that I dont want to lose, particularly pictures and video. If I did, I would handle those the same way, multiple copys on multiple types of media and keep checking to ensure that none of the stuff on DVDs is degrading over time. I have also deliberately chosen a DVD burner that has a reputation for not being fussy about the media and for being able to write DVDs that can be read reliably in any DVD player I care to read them in. A Pioneer 109. Thanks for the information. Are there any other DVD writers that can be recommended? That list that Henry posted isnt bad. I'll definitely look into that. I suppose it would be more than a bit stupid to look at dual-layer DVD's? I dont use them just because of the price, and because I dont need the higher capacity except for more convenience with copying commercially made DVDs. But since I never bother to watch anything more than once, life is something I dont care about as long as the life is better than months. I have no real interest in copying DVD's, so I would probably use the drive almost exclusively for backup purposes. I heard that there were "rotting" problems with commercial dual-layer DVD's, so it's probably tempting fate to buy a writing dual-layer drive at the moment The technology is too new to be considered reliable. Regards, Pan |
#12
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Pan wrote in message news Rod Speed wrote Pan wrote I've heard removable hard disks are a good alternative to using DVD's full stop. Yes, as long as you arent prone to dropping things. Unfortunately my record isn't that good Thats one big advantage with DVDs, they survive dropping much better. That is close to what I do separately to using CDs and DVDs too, basically write the critical stuff that I cant afford to lose to other drives on the local network of PCs. Yep, I do the same for stuff that is often updated, copy it across the network on a daily basis to another computer for safe-keeping. Yeah, by far the best for a high level of backup so you dont lose much if something does die. I do the highest activity stuff, code, a different way, manually backup at particular points in the code development, multiple times a day, so whatever happens you aint lost much. That is more for protection against user error than hardware failure, the situation where you do a substantial reorganisation of the code etc and then decide that there is a good reason for not doing it that way and you want to step back from that easily. I wrote a quick script to automate the process. Yeah, I did too, tho its database based. Apparently they are very reliable Dunno, you'll find virtually all of the hard drive manufacturers except samsung will only warranty externals for 1 year. I don't know if this is true, but I heard that this was done simply to reduce the massive numbers of warranties that hard disk manufacturers have to get a tag on. The problem with that line is that some manufacturers have a different warranty for external drives and internal drives. Presumably they have noticed that they are getting a significantly higher return rate with the externals. Hard disks are apparently so reliable these days that you can realistically expect them to last for years. This could all be an excuse of course, but I must confess, I haven't had all that many failures myself. Yeah, I've only had one with IDE drives. I brought my WD hard disk because it was backed by a three-year warranty though just to be sure. Yeah, thats a real bonus with the samsungs, 3 years on everything, tho I buy them for their quietness. And I havent chosen to buy seagate lately, with their new 5 year warrantys, essentially because they arent as quiet as the samsungs and get too hot for my taste too. I've come close tho, essentially because samsung is a tad slow with buyable drives over 160G and I've replaced the VCRs with a PC with multiple digital TV tuner cards and I have a real need for more drive space. So far I have decided to wait, essentially because the samsungs are much quieter. and probably likely to outlast DVD's completely. Maybe, but I dont need that sort of long term reliability, essentially because I keep backing up everything that I care about at a decent rate. But I dont bother with photos or videos. I do have photos and videos. But the main point of why I'm considering DVD's now is that I'm becoming concerned about some of the lower quality discs I burned about five years ago. I'd prefer to be safe and burn newer copies of these discs to be sure. Yeah, I've always done that myself, that insurance is dirt cheap. So I can either begin replacing older CD's on a 1 to 1 basis from the older ones I have, or I can replace the standard with DVD and do a copy of the entire collection. It's a renewal I'm looking at now and I'm wondering if I should go with DVD, or stick with CD for the foreseeable future. I'd change to DVD now if you arent getting any CD failures. Basically DVDs are now mature enough, tho in my opinion thats only quite recently become true. I basically waited till dual layer became available, even tho I dont plan to use them much for a while, due to the fact that the media is currently rather poor value. I currently use DVD+RW format most of the time with an ocassional use of DVD-R media so that if it turns out that one of the formats doesnt last as long as I would like, I will become aware of that while I still have at least one other format that hasnt yet started to show any sign of degradation. Good idea. I'll go with DVD-R and DVD+R to ensure I have some security against degradation. However, I find it unlikely that either +R or -R will become unsupported, most likely they'll both be supported under a new unified standard much like the old modem wars between K56Flex and X2. These two were unified under V90 of course. I handle that differently, once a particular format is passing its useby date, I have always got the data that matters on more modern media. So I dont have anything on floppy now and dont usually bother to even install a floppy drive in a system I assemble anymore. Well, I have old floppy's, but I never use them anymore, they were pretty unreliable as a backup medium anyway. Yeah, thats the main reason I gave up on them. With my level of backup that was never more than a nuisance, but there isnt any point in bothering with that nuisance and there hasnt been any for a long time. Any system has to have a cdrom or dvd drive, so I dont bother with a floppy drive even tho they only cost peanuts. Pendrives seem most likely to replace them I think. Dunno, I have basically replaced them with CDs. But I dont have any independant PCs, they're all networked. And when I want to give someone something thats too big for transfer over the web, CDs are more convenient than pen drives, just because they are so cheap that the cost of postage is trivial. I can send them for the letter rate. Thats mostly people stuck with dialup who need something like the XP SP2 etc. I also do it with stuff like TV series downloaded off the net written to DVD as avi files and played on a DVD player that can do that. However, I don't think I'd build a system without a floppy just yet, I like the keep the option of having the device available, and there are always annoying things that need a floppy to work or boot with (like Dell drivers for example). Although you can probably get around it, I think it's less hassle to keep it. I do have a floppy drive that I can plug in if its ever needed. Havent needed to for a long time, essentially I use Bart PE etc to get a driver into the system over the lan instead. That works even when the new system needs an obscure NIC driver to connect to the lan. I need the lan connection to install the various misc stuff anyway and have a folder of shortcuts on the main system so its completely trivial to configure a newly assembled system. I suppose it would be more than a bit stupid to look at dual-layer DVD's? I dont use them just because of the price, and because I dont need the higher capacity except for more convenience with copying commercially made DVDs. But since I never bother to watch anything more than once, life is something I dont care about as long as the life is better than months. I have no real interest in copying DVD's, so I would probably use the drive almost exclusively for backup purposes. I heard that there were "rotting" problems with commercial dual-layer DVD's, so it's probably tempting fate to buy a writing dual-layer drive at the moment The technology is too new to be considered reliable. I agree that the media isnt worth bothering with currently, even if you do copy commercial DVDs, two single layer DVDs makes more sense. But you get dual layer capable burners automatically now, I cant think of any of the DVD burners worth considering that doesnt have that now. |
#13
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On Thu, 02 Jun 2005 04:48:04 +1000, Rod Speed wrote:
Yes, as long as you arent prone to dropping things. Unfortunately my record isn't that good Thats one big advantage with DVDs, they survive dropping much better. Yes, dropped one a few days ago, but managed to trap it at the last minute between a desk and my hand. Fortunately it showed no signs of any damage at all. The fall wasn't that bad, but I wouldn't of been surprised to see a minor scratch or two. That is close to what I do separately to using CDs and DVDs too, basically write the critical stuff that I cant afford to lose to other drives on the local network of PCs. Yep, I do the same for stuff that is often updated, copy it across the network on a daily basis to another computer for safe-keeping. Yeah, by far the best for a high level of backup so you dont lose much if something does die. The most convenient and fastest as well. I learnt years ago to do this when I unfortunately made a serious mistake and wiped the wrong hard disk clean...... Apparently they are very reliable Dunno, you'll find virtually all of the hard drive manufacturers except samsung will only warranty externals for 1 year. I don't know if this is true, but I heard that this was done simply to reduce the massive numbers of warranties that hard disk manufacturers have to get a tag on. The problem with that line is that some manufacturers have a different warranty for external drives and internal drives. Presumably they have noticed that they are getting a significantly higher return rate with the externals. Ah, sorry, I missed the words "externals". However, it could be that the higher number of returns for these is caused by people hoping for replacements when they drop them Hard disks are apparently so reliable these days that you can realistically expect them to last for years. This could all be an excuse of course, but I must confess, I haven't had all that many failures myself. Yeah, I've only had one with IDE drives. I've had two fail. I suspect that both may of been my fault though, I didn't know anything about magnetic fields years ago and had the speaker on top of my tower case. After seven or eight months, the first drive starting developing random bad sectors all over the drive. It could very well be related. The second was during a period where one of my RAM chips blew and was corrupting all my data. I didn't know where the problem was at first, and spent quite a while unplugging and re-plugging the HD cables and power lead to ensure nothing was amiss there. After a bit of this, the drive just refused to power-up again. I brought my WD hard disk because it was backed by a three-year warranty though just to be sure. Yeah, thats a real bonus with the samsungs, 3 years on everything, tho I buy them for their quietness. Although Samsung have been around for a while now, I did originally shy away from them because they were a relative newcomer to the field. I have tended to like to stick to the more established drive manufacturers who should have better support and drive construction technology in place. That's my theory anyway, not sure about the practise And I havent chosen to buy seagate lately, with their new 5 year warrantys, essentially because they arent as quiet as the samsungs and get too hot for my taste too. Yes, I've heard about the heat generated by the Seagate drives. That's put me off buying any of theirs so far, although the 5-year warranty sounds impressive. The noise has never really bothered me. I've come close tho, essentially because samsung is a tad slow with buyable drives over 160G and I've replaced the VCRs with a PC with multiple digital TV tuner cards and I have a real need for more drive space. So far I have decided to wait, essentially because the samsungs are much quieter. That's interesting. How have you gone about setting up a PC as a VCR recorder? Why have you gone for multiple cards? I've been wondering what to do about VCR's for a long time now VHS is on the way out and DVD recording isn't quite there yet. So I can either begin replacing older CD's on a 1 to 1 basis from the older ones I have, or I can replace the standard with DVD and do a copy of the entire collection. It's a renewal I'm looking at now and I'm wondering if I should go with DVD, or stick with CD for the foreseeable future. I'd change to DVD now if you arent getting any CD failures. I'm leaning in that direction myself now after posting to this forum. Basically DVDs are now mature enough, tho in my opinion thats only quite recently become true. I basically waited till dual layer became available, even tho I dont plan to use them much for a while, due to the fact that the media is currently rather poor value. Why did you think that the availability of dual layer drives resulted in DVD's reaching a more mature state? I currently use DVD+RW format most of the time with an ocassional use of DVD-R media so that if it turns out that one of the formats doesnt last as long as I would like, I will become aware of that while I still have at least one other format that hasnt yet started to show any sign of degradation. Good idea. I'll go with DVD-R and DVD+R to ensure I have some security against degradation. However, I find it unlikely that either +R or -R will become unsupported, most likely they'll both be supported under a new unified standard much like the old modem wars between K56Flex and X2. These two were unified under V90 of course. I handle that differently, once a particular format is passing its useby date, I have always got the data that matters on more modern media. So I dont have anything on floppy now and dont usually bother to even install a floppy drive in a system I assemble anymore. Well, I have old floppy's, but I never use them anymore, they were pretty unreliable as a backup medium anyway. Yeah, thats the main reason I gave up on them. With my level of backup that was never more than a nuisance, but there isnt any point in bothering with that nuisance and there hasnt been any for a long time. Any system has to have a cdrom or dvd drive, so I dont bother with a floppy drive even tho they only cost peanuts. Agreed. Not only were they slow and inefficient, but they weren't very reliable at keeping their data either Pendrives seem most likely to replace them I think. Dunno, I have basically replaced them with CDs. I think the slightly more inconvenient writing procedure for CD's (i.e, not random access) makes flash memory, i.e with pendrives a better replacement for the floppy. There is packet writing for CD's of course, but it never really took off in any big way, mainly I suspect because it proved unreliable when writing Packet CD's on more than one system. But I dont have any independant PCs, they're all networked. Same here, independent PC's are just a nuisance And when I want to give someone something thats too big for transfer over the web, CDs are more convenient than pen drives, just because they are so cheap that the cost of postage is trivial. I can send them for the letter rate. Yep, I would agree that CD's are more convenient for this purpose. However, if you personally want to transfer files yourself from system to system, particularly if you don't control the system at one end, pendrives have always seemed the best alternative to me. However, I don't think I'd build a system without a floppy just yet, I like the keep the option of having the device available, and there are always annoying things that need a floppy to work or boot with (like Dell drivers for example). Although you can probably get around it, I think it's less hassle to keep it. I do have a floppy drive that I can plug in if its ever needed. Havent needed to for a long time, essentially I use Bart PE etc to get a driver into the system over the lan instead. That works even when the new system needs an obscure NIC driver to connect to the lan. I need the lan connection to install the various misc stuff anyway and have a folder of shortcuts on the main system so its completely trivial to configure a newly assembled system. Sounds handy. I find that bootable CD's and CD-Bootable OS's like Knoppix have made new system administrator pretty simple these days. I suppose it would be more than a bit stupid to look at dual-layer DVD's? I dont use them just because of the price, and because I dont need the higher capacity except for more convenience with copying commercially made DVDs. But since I never bother to watch anything more than once, life is something I dont care about as long as the life is better than months. I have no real interest in copying DVD's, so I would probably use the drive almost exclusively for backup purposes. I heard that there were "rotting" problems with commercial dual-layer DVD's, so it's probably tempting fate to buy a writing dual-layer drive at the moment The technology is too new to be considered reliable. I agree that the media isnt worth bothering with currently, even if you do copy commercial DVDs, two single layer DVDs makes more sense. But you get dual layer capable burners automatically now, I cant think of any of the DVD burners worth considering that doesnt have that now. It's worth getting a dual layer capable burner as you say for future-compatibility. But for reliability reasons, I'm certainly sticking to single layer DVD's for now Regards, Pan |
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On Thu, 02 Jun 2005 04:48:04 +1000, Rod Speed wrote:
Yes, as long as you arent prone to dropping things. Unfortunately my record isn't that good Thats one big advantage with DVDs, they survive dropping much better. Yes, dropped one a few days ago, but managed to trap it at the last minute between a desk and my hand. Fortunately it showed no signs of any damage at all. The fall wasn't that bad, but I wouldn't of been surprised to see a minor scratch or two. That is close to what I do separately to using CDs and DVDs too, basically write the critical stuff that I cant afford to lose to other drives on the local network of PCs. Yep, I do the same for stuff that is often updated, copy it across the network on a daily basis to another computer for safe-keeping. Yeah, by far the best for a high level of backup so you dont lose much if something does die. The most convenient and fastest as well. I learnt years ago to do this when I unfortunately made a serious mistake and wiped the wrong hard disk clean...... Apparently they are very reliable Dunno, you'll find virtually all of the hard drive manufacturers except samsung will only warranty externals for 1 year. I don't know if this is true, but I heard that this was done simply to reduce the massive numbers of warranties that hard disk manufacturers have to get a tag on. The problem with that line is that some manufacturers have a different warranty for external drives and internal drives. Presumably they have noticed that they are getting a significantly higher return rate with the externals. Ah, sorry, I missed the words "externals". However, it could be that the higher number of returns for these is caused by people hoping for replacements when they drop them Hard disks are apparently so reliable these days that you can realistically expect them to last for years. This could all be an excuse of course, but I must confess, I haven't had all that many failures myself. Yeah, I've only had one with IDE drives. I've had two fail. I suspect that both may of been my fault though, I didn't know anything about magnetic fields years ago and had the speaker on top of my tower case. After seven or eight months, the first drive starting developing random bad sectors all over the drive. It could very well be related. The second was during a period where one of my RAM chips blew and was corrupting all my data. I didn't know where the problem was at first, and spent quite a while unplugging and re-plugging the HD cables and power lead to ensure nothing was amiss there. After a bit of this, the drive just refused to power-up again. I brought my WD hard disk because it was backed by a three-year warranty though just to be sure. Yeah, thats a real bonus with the samsungs, 3 years on everything, tho I buy them for their quietness. Although Samsung have been around for a while now, I did originally shy away from them because they were a relative newcomer to the field. I have tended to like to stick to the more established drive manufacturers who should have better support and drive construction technology in place. That's my theory anyway, not sure about the practise And I havent chosen to buy seagate lately, with their new 5 year warrantys, essentially because they arent as quiet as the samsungs and get too hot for my taste too. Yes, I've heard about the heat generated by the Seagate drives. That's put me off buying any of theirs so far, although the 5-year warranty sounds impressive. The noise has never really bothered me. I've come close tho, essentially because samsung is a tad slow with buyable drives over 160G and I've replaced the VCRs with a PC with multiple digital TV tuner cards and I have a real need for more drive space. So far I have decided to wait, essentially because the samsungs are much quieter. That's interesting. How have you gone about setting up a PC as a VCR recorder? Why have you gone for multiple cards? I've been wondering what to do about VCR's for a long time now VHS is on the way out and DVD recording isn't quite there yet. So I can either begin replacing older CD's on a 1 to 1 basis from the older ones I have, or I can replace the standard with DVD and do a copy of the entire collection. It's a renewal I'm looking at now and I'm wondering if I should go with DVD, or stick with CD for the foreseeable future. I'd change to DVD now if you arent getting any CD failures. I'm leaning in that direction myself now after posting to this forum. Basically DVDs are now mature enough, tho in my opinion thats only quite recently become true. I basically waited till dual layer became available, even tho I dont plan to use them much for a while, due to the fact that the media is currently rather poor value. Why did you think that the availability of dual layer drives resulted in DVD's reaching a more mature state? I currently use DVD+RW format most of the time with an ocassional use of DVD-R media so that if it turns out that one of the formats doesnt last as long as I would like, I will become aware of that while I still have at least one other format that hasnt yet started to show any sign of degradation. Good idea. I'll go with DVD-R and DVD+R to ensure I have some security against degradation. However, I find it unlikely that either +R or -R will become unsupported, most likely they'll both be supported under a new unified standard much like the old modem wars between K56Flex and X2. These two were unified under V90 of course. I handle that differently, once a particular format is passing its useby date, I have always got the data that matters on more modern media. So I dont have anything on floppy now and dont usually bother to even install a floppy drive in a system I assemble anymore. Well, I have old floppy's, but I never use them anymore, they were pretty unreliable as a backup medium anyway. Yeah, thats the main reason I gave up on them. With my level of backup that was never more than a nuisance, but there isnt any point in bothering with that nuisance and there hasnt been any for a long time. Any system has to have a cdrom or dvd drive, so I dont bother with a floppy drive even tho they only cost peanuts. Agreed. Not only were they slow and inefficient, but they weren't very reliable at keeping their data either Pendrives seem most likely to replace them I think. Dunno, I have basically replaced them with CDs. I think the slightly more inconvenient writing procedure for CD's (i.e, not random access) makes flash memory, i.e with pendrives a better replacement for the floppy. There is packet writing for CD's of course, but it never really took off in any big way, mainly I suspect because it proved unreliable when writing Packet CD's on more than one system. But I dont have any independant PCs, they're all networked. Same here, independent PC's are just a nuisance And when I want to give someone something thats too big for transfer over the web, CDs are more convenient than pen drives, just because they are so cheap that the cost of postage is trivial. I can send them for the letter rate. Yep, I would agree that CD's are more convenient for this purpose. However, if you personally want to transfer files yourself from system to system, particularly if you don't control the system at one end, pendrives have always seemed the best alternative to me. However, I don't think I'd build a system without a floppy just yet, I like the keep the option of having the device available, and there are always annoying things that need a floppy to work or boot with (like Dell drivers for example). Although you can probably get around it, I think it's less hassle to keep it. I do have a floppy drive that I can plug in if its ever needed. Havent needed to for a long time, essentially I use Bart PE etc to get a driver into the system over the lan instead. That works even when the new system needs an obscure NIC driver to connect to the lan. I need the lan connection to install the various misc stuff anyway and have a folder of shortcuts on the main system so its completely trivial to configure a newly assembled system. Sounds handy. I find that bootable CD's and CD-Bootable OS's like Knoppix have made new system administrator pretty simple these days. I suppose it would be more than a bit stupid to look at dual-layer DVD's? I dont use them just because of the price, and because I dont need the higher capacity except for more convenience with copying commercially made DVDs. But since I never bother to watch anything more than once, life is something I dont care about as long as the life is better than months. I have no real interest in copying DVD's, so I would probably use the drive almost exclusively for backup purposes. I heard that there were "rotting" problems with commercial dual-layer DVD's, so it's probably tempting fate to buy a writing dual-layer drive at the moment The technology is too new to be considered reliable. I agree that the media isnt worth bothering with currently, even if you do copy commercial DVDs, two single layer DVDs makes more sense. But you get dual layer capable burners automatically now, I cant think of any of the DVD burners worth considering that doesnt have that now. It would be worth getting a dual layer capable burner anyway for future-compatibility. But for reliability reasons, I'm certainly sticking to single layer DVD's for now Regards, Pan |
#15
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Pan wrote in message news Rod Speed wrote I've come close tho, essentially because samsung is a tad slow with buyable drives over 160G and I've replaced the VCRs with a PC with multiple digital TV tuner cards and I have a real need for more drive space. So far I have decided to wait, essentially because the samsungs are much quieter. That's interesting. How have you gone about setting up a PC as a VCR recorder? Basically just an older PC that was once the main system, with multiple digital TV cards. XP Media Edition is another approach tho I dont use that personally. Why have you gone for multiple cards? You basically need one for each channel recorded simultaneously. I watch almost nothing live now, much more convenient to watch it from the hard drive, so you can skip the ads, watch it when you choose to rather than when its broadcast, and phone calls etc are a complete yawn etc. I quite often am recording 3 channels at once, tho its usually more than 2 just because the broadcasts arent guaranteed to start and finish at the scheduled time etc. I've been wondering what to do about VCR's for a long time now VHS is on the way out Yeah, and with a bloody great widescreen TV, the visible defects with VCRs were getting to be a significant irritation. and DVD recording isn't quite there yet. Yeah, none of those come with a digital tuner currently. I prefer to do my own than to buy one of the hard drive based recorders. Those are too limited as far as being able to move files around conveniently for me. Basically DVDs are now mature enough, tho in my opinion thats only quite recently become true. I basically waited till dual layer became available, even tho I dont plan to use them much for a while, due to the fact that the media is currently rather poor value. Why did you think that the availability of dual layer drives resulted in DVD's reaching a more mature state? I didnt mean to imply any link on that. It was more complete support for all formats and a reputation for being happy to burn any media that wasnt physically defective that happened coincidentally with dual layer capability. I currently use DVD+RW format most of the time with an ocassional use of DVD-R media so that if it turns out that one of the formats doesnt last as long as I would like, I will become aware of that while I still have at least one other format that hasnt yet started to show any sign of degradation. Good idea. I'll go with DVD-R and DVD+R to ensure I have some security against degradation. However, I find it unlikely that either +R or -R will become unsupported, most likely they'll both be supported under a new unified standard much like the old modem wars between K56Flex and X2. These two were unified under V90 of course. I handle that differently, once a particular format is passing its useby date, I have always got the data that matters on more modern media. So I dont have anything on floppy now and dont usually bother to even install a floppy drive in a system I assemble anymore. Well, I have old floppy's, but I never use them anymore, they were pretty unreliable as a backup medium anyway. Yeah, thats the main reason I gave up on them. With my level of backup that was never more than a nuisance, but there isnt any point in bothering with that nuisance and there hasnt been any for a long time. Any system has to have a cdrom or dvd drive, so I dont bother with a floppy drive even tho they only cost peanuts. Agreed. Not only were they slow and inefficient, but they weren't very reliable at keeping their data either Yeah, I've never had a CD go bad, not even scratched enough by me to be unusuable. Lots of floppys went bad. Pendrives seem most likely to replace them I think. Dunno, I have basically replaced them with CDs. I think the slightly more inconvenient writing procedure for CD's (i.e, not random access) makes flash memory, i.e with pendrives a better replacement for the floppy. I dont do much of that sort of access with CDs. They're normally burnt from an iso, written using Creator Classic when its files to give to someone, or with backup. There is packet writing for CD's of course, but it never really took off in any big way, mainly I suspect because it proved unreliable when writing Packet CD's on more than one system. Yeah, I did use it quite a bit at one time but normally use Creator Classic now. But I dont have any independant PCs, they're all networked. Same here, independent PC's are just a nuisance Yeah, I normally network even foreign PCs that I'm working on, so much more convenient for file access etc. And when I want to give someone something thats too big for transfer over the web, CDs are more convenient than pen drives, just because they are so cheap that the cost of postage is trivial. I can send them for the letter rate. Yep, I would agree that CD's are more convenient for this purpose. However, if you personally want to transfer files yourself from system to system, particularly if you don't control the system at one end, pendrives have always seemed the best alternative to me. Dunno, I hardly ever move stuff small enough to fit on them now. Lately most stuff has been better on DVD than CD too. However, I don't think I'd build a system without a floppy just yet, I like the keep the option of having the device available, and there are always annoying things that need a floppy to work or boot with (like Dell drivers for example). Although you can probably get around it, I think it's less hassle to keep it. I do have a floppy drive that I can plug in if its ever needed. Havent needed to for a long time, essentially I use Bart PE etc to get a driver into the system over the lan instead. That works even when the new system needs an obscure NIC driver to connect to the lan. I need the lan connection to install the various misc stuff anyway and have a folder of shortcuts on the main system so its completely trivial to configure a newly assembled system. Sounds handy. I find that bootable CD's and CD-Bootable OS's like Knoppix have made new system administrator pretty simple these days. Yeah, the only very minor blemish is that the boot from CD is a tad slow. More than made up for by the fact that all the tools you need are there once its booted. Its only the very usual stuff like drivers that arent. I suppose it would be more than a bit stupid to look at dual-layer DVD's? I dont use them just because of the price, and because I dont need the higher capacity except for more convenience with copying commercially made DVDs. But since I never bother to watch anything more than once, life is something I dont care about as long as the life is better than months. I have no real interest in copying DVD's, so I would probably use the drive almost exclusively for backup purposes. I heard that there were "rotting" problems with commercial dual-layer DVD's, so it's probably tempting fate to buy a writing dual-layer drive at the moment The technology is too new to be considered reliable. I agree that the media isnt worth bothering with currently, even if you do copy commercial DVDs, two single layer DVDs makes more sense. But you get dual layer capable burners automatically now, I cant think of any of the DVD burners worth considering that doesnt have that now. It's worth getting a dual layer capable burner as you say for future-compatibility. But for reliability reasons, I'm certainly sticking to single layer DVD's for now Yeah, me too, but thats mostly due to the poor value. |
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On Thu, 02 Jun 2005 14:10:23 +1000, Rod Speed wrote:
That's interesting. How have you gone about setting up a PC as a VCR recorder? Basically just an older PC that was once the main system, with multiple digital TV cards. XP Media Edition is another approach tho I dont use that personally. What software/OS are you using for this? I might think about implementing something like this myself. I watch almost nothing live now, much more convenient to watch it from the hard drive, so you can skip the ads, watch it when you choose to rather than when its broadcast, and phone calls etc are a complete yawn etc. I quite often am recording 3 channels at once, tho its usually more than 2 just because the broadcasts arent guaranteed to start and finish at the scheduled time etc. Yes, it does sound like a good idea, and I suppose you always have the option to burn the TV movie files to a DVD for future viewing too. I prefer to do my own than to buy one of the hard drive based recorders. Those are too limited as far as being able to move files around conveniently for me. I must admit that I know very little about hard disk recording. I had a look at a few today, but I couldn't work out if the Freeview ones would work with Sky. What I read seemed to suggest you need a Sky recorder for that, but as far as I can see, as long as you can get digital output, you can record it externally with whatever you like. Basically DVDs are now mature enough, tho in my opinion thats only quite recently become true. I basically waited till dual layer became available, even tho I dont plan to use them much for a while, due to the fact that the media is currently rather poor value. Why did you think that the availability of dual layer drives resulted in DVD's reaching a more mature state? I didnt mean to imply any link on that. It was more complete support for all formats and a reputation for being happy to burn any media that wasnt physically defective that happened coincidentally with dual layer capability. Yes, the -R/RW and +R/RW standards seem to of become the main standards of late and are well supported. I'm not too sure about the future of DVD-RAM, but I guess it has enough support to last a decent time into the future. Yeah, thats the main reason I gave up on them. With my level of backup that was never more than a nuisance, but there isnt any point in bothering with that nuisance and there hasnt been any for a long time. Any system has to have a cdrom or dvd drive, so I dont bother with a floppy drive even tho they only cost peanuts. Agreed. Not only were they slow and inefficient, but they weren't very reliable at keeping their data either Yeah, I've never had a CD go bad, not even scratched enough by me to be unusuable. Lots of floppys went bad. Yes, I got so tired of CRC errors, I brought a tape drive and starting using that instead They are apparently quite reliable, although I was concerned that the tape may snap one day. Then again, I've heard people say you can just stick it back together and it'll work fine. There is packet writing for CD's of course, but it never really took off in any big way, mainly I suspect because it proved unreliable when writing Packet CD's on more than one system. Yeah, I did use it quite a bit at one time but normally use Creator Classic now. I used it for a while, but when I heard it was unreliable, I abandoned it. To be honest, I didn't find it very reliable myself so it wasn't a difficult decision. And when I want to give someone something thats too big for transfer over the web, CDs are more convenient than pen drives, just because they are so cheap that the cost of postage is trivial. I can send them for the letter rate. Yep, I would agree that CD's are more convenient for this purpose. However, if you personally want to transfer files yourself from system to system, particularly if you don't control the system at one end, pendrives have always seemed the best alternative to me. Dunno, I hardly ever move stuff small enough to fit on them now. Perhaps that's true for the smaller ones, but flash memory is now nearing CD sizes at competitive prices. Lately most stuff has been better on DVD than CD too. That rules out flash memory after all then Sounds handy. I find that bootable CD's and CD-Bootable OS's like Knoppix have made new system administrator pretty simple these days. Yeah, the only very minor blemish is that the boot from CD is a tad slow. More than made up for by the fact that all the tools you need are there once its booted. Its only the very usual stuff like drivers that arent. I agree totally. There's nothing better as an emergency toolkit than CD bootable OS's. Drivers can be a problem when they get older, but most of the ones I use are updated regularly anyway. Regards, Pan |
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Pan wrote in message news Rod Speed wrote That's interesting. How have you gone about setting up a PC as a VCR recorder? Basically just an older PC that was once the main system, with multiple digital TV cards. XP Media Edition is another approach tho I dont use that personally. What software/OS are you using for this? What came with the card, on XP. The software supports multiple cards. Looking at using webschedule, but havent started to yet. I might think about implementing something like this myself. I've had no regrets at all. Only thing that I didnt think thru fully was the use of hard drive space, at 2-4G per hour, its quite hungry of hard drive space and while you can crunch that back to say 350MB avi files, the computing horsepower required to do that in a reasonable time isnt trivial. Currently I just watch it in the dvr-ms file format. I watch almost nothing live now, much more convenient to watch it from the hard drive, so you can skip the ads, watch it when you choose to rather than when its broadcast, and phone calls etc are a complete yawn etc. I quite often am recording 3 channels at once, tho its usually more than 2 just because the broadcasts arent guaranteed to start and finish at the scheduled time etc. Yes, it does sound like a good idea, and I suppose you always have the option to burn the TV movie files to a DVD for future viewing too. Yep. And I deliberately got a DVD player which can play mpeg files directly. It takes minimal computing power to turn a dvr-ms file into an mpeg, its really just stripping off the packet info in the dvr-ms file. I prefer to do my own than to buy one of the hard drive based recorders. Those are too limited as far as being able to move files around conveniently for me. I must admit that I know very little about hard disk recording. I had a look at a few today, but I couldn't work out if the Freeview ones would work with Sky. What I read seemed to suggest you need a Sky recorder for that, but as far as I can see, as long as you can get digital output, you can record it externally with whatever you like. Yeah, thats basically correct. Basically DVDs are now mature enough, tho in my opinion thats only quite recently become true. I basically waited till dual layer became available, even tho I dont plan to use them much for a while, due to the fact that the media is currently rather poor value. Why did you think that the availability of dual layer drives resulted in DVD's reaching a more mature state? I didnt mean to imply any link on that. It was more complete support for all formats and a reputation for being happy to burn any media that wasnt physically defective that happened coincidentally with dual layer capability. Yes, the -R/RW and +R/RW standards seem to of become the main standards of late and are well supported. Yep, any decent burner supports them all now. Dual layer too. I'm not too sure about the future of DVD-RAM, but I guess it has enough support to last a decent time into the future. Yeah, tho if any are going to die early it will be that one. I didnt bother with it myself, mainly because the media is poor value. Yeah, thats the main reason I gave up on them. With my level of backup that was never more than a nuisance, but there isnt any point in bothering with that nuisance and there hasnt been any for a long time. Any system has to have a cdrom or dvd drive, so I dont bother with a floppy drive even tho they only cost peanuts. Agreed. Not only were they slow and inefficient, but they weren't very reliable at keeping their data either Yeah, I've never had a CD go bad, not even scratched enough by me to be unusuable. Lots of floppys went bad. Yes, I got so tired of CRC errors, I brought a tape drive and starting using that instead They are apparently quite reliable, I gave up on those before I gave up on floppys. although I was concerned that the tape may snap one day. That isnt seen very often at all. Then again, I've heard people say you can just stick it back together and it'll work fine. And when I want to give someone something thats too big for transfer over the web, CDs are more convenient than pen drives, just because they are so cheap that the cost of postage is trivial. I can send them for the letter rate. Yep, I would agree that CD's are more convenient for this purpose. However, if you personally want to transfer files yourself from system to system, particularly if you don't control the system at one end, pendrives have always seemed the best alternative to me. Dunno, I hardly ever move stuff small enough to fit on them now. Perhaps that's true for the smaller ones, but flash memory is now nearing CD sizes Yes. at competitive prices. Cant agree with that at all. Lately most stuff has been better on DVD than CD too. That rules out flash memory after all then Yep. |
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On Fri, 03 Jun 2005 10:11:29 +1000, Rod Speed wrote:
Pan wrote in message news Rod Speed wrote That's interesting. How have you gone about setting up a PC as a VCR recorder? Basically just an older PC that was once the main system, with multiple digital TV cards. XP Media Edition is another approach tho I dont use that personally. What software/OS are you using for this? What came with the card, on XP. The software supports multiple cards. Which TV cards do you use? How did you find them? I might think about implementing something like this myself. I've had no regrets at all. Sounds interesting for sure. Only thing that I didnt think thru fully was the use of hard drive space, at 2-4G per hour, its quite hungry of hard drive space and while you can crunch that back to say 350MB avi files, the computing horsepower required to do that in a reasonable time isnt trivial. Currently I just watch it in the dvr-ms file format. Yes, I'm not surprised about that, video is well known to consume a lot of hard disk space without processor intensive compression. But with a 160G hard disk, that still gives you a lot of recording I'm not too sure about the future of DVD-RAM, but I guess it has enough support to last a decent time into the future. Yeah, tho if any are going to die early it will be that one. I agree with that, so that's the one I plan to avoid. I think it's quite likely that a new unified standard somewhere between -R and +R technology will be developed. At this stage, I'm not sure where DVD-RAM will fit in. Yeah, thats the main reason I gave up on them. With my level of backup that was never more than a nuisance, but there isnt any point in bothering with that nuisance and there hasnt been any for a long time. Any system has to have a cdrom or dvd drive, so I dont bother with a floppy drive even tho they only cost peanuts. Agreed. Not only were they slow and inefficient, but they weren't very reliable at keeping their data either Yeah, I've never had a CD go bad, not even scratched enough by me to be unusuable. Lots of floppys went bad. Yes, I got so tired of CRC errors, I brought a tape drive and starting using that instead They are apparently quite reliable, I gave up on those before I gave up on floppys. Why? Although they are quite slow, I think it's infinitely preferable to floppy's surely? Perhaps that's true for the smaller ones, but flash memory is now nearing CD sizes Yes. at competitive prices. Cant agree with that at all. Well, a quick survey of an online shop I use establishes a 512 pendrive at £28 with an SD card at £18. This isn't as cheap as DVD media of course, but no drive is required and the drive has random read/write capability and is fully re-usable. I guess it comes down to what you want. I would prefer the convenience of a 512 pendrive for carting data about at the prices quoted, whereas you may prefer the raw savings provided by the use of CD media. Each to his/her own I suppose Just wanted to personally thank you in advance for all the help you've provided. Your advice has proven very useful in helping me to choose to switch to DVD media. My thanks also to everybody else who replied in this thread. Much appreciated. Regards, Pan |
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Pan wrote in message news Rod Speed wrote Pan wrote Rod Speed wrote That's interesting. How have you gone about setting up a PC as a VCR recorder? Basically just an older PC that was once the main system, with multiple digital TV cards. XP Media Edition is another approach tho I dont use that personally. What software/OS are you using for this? What came with the card, on XP. The software supports multiple cards. Which TV cards do you use? DNTV Live! How did you find them? Not clear if you mean how did I discover them or how do I find them to use. No real complaints except that the software is a little less than perfect currently, not by much tho. I might think about implementing something like this myself. I've had no regrets at all. Sounds interesting for sure. Yeah, rather radically changes the way I do things with TV recording. You dont have to fart around finding big enough holes in the tapes for what you want to record, just ensure that the total space left on the hard drive is enough. The viewer I use keeps track of where I have got up to in each file, so thats in some ways even easier than with tapes too. Only thing that I didnt think thru fully was the use of hard drive space, at 2-4G per hour, its quite hungry of hard drive space and while you can crunch that back to say 350MB avi files, the computing horsepower required to do that in a reasonable time isnt trivial. Currently I just watch it in the dvr-ms file format. Yes, I'm not surprised about that, video is well known to consume a lot of hard disk space without processor intensive compression. But with a 160G hard disk, that still gives you a lot of recording Yeah, but I do record quite a bit since I watch almost nothing live. I'm not too sure about the future of DVD-RAM, but I guess it has enough support to last a decent time into the future. Yeah, tho if any are going to die early it will be that one. I agree with that, so that's the one I plan to avoid. I think it's quite likely that a new unified standard somewhere between -R and +R technology will be developed. At this stage, I'm not sure where DVD-RAM will fit in. I guess it mostly depends on how long its used in dedicated DVD recorders. My burner will read them, just wont burn them. Yeah, thats the main reason I gave up on them. With my level of backup that was never more than a nuisance, but there isnt any point in bothering with that nuisance and there hasnt been any for a long time. Any system has to have a cdrom or dvd drive, so I dont bother with a floppy drive even tho they only cost peanuts. Agreed. Not only were they slow and inefficient, but they weren't very reliable at keeping their data either Yeah, I've never had a CD go bad, not even scratched enough by me to be unusuable. Lots of floppys went bad. Yes, I got so tired of CRC errors, I brought a tape drive and starting using that instead They are apparently quite reliable, I gave up on those before I gave up on floppys. Why? Too unreliable. Although they are quite slow, I think it's infinitely preferable to floppy's surely? Sure, but I had a CD burner by then. Perhaps that's true for the smaller ones, but flash memory is now nearing CD sizes Yes. at competitive prices. Cant agree with that at all. Well, a quick survey of an online shop I use establishes a 512 pendrive at £28 with an SD card at £18. This isn't as cheap as DVD media of course, Thats what I meant by the prices not being competitive at all. but no drive is required Sure, but I have one anyway for other reasons. and the drive has random read/write capability and is fully re-usable. Sure, the technology is fine, its just poor value. I guess it comes down to what you want. I would prefer the convenience of a 512 pendrive for carting data about at the prices quoted, I use CD for that size. And had a CD burner well before the pen drives ever showed up. whereas you may prefer the raw savings provided by the use of CD media. Its not that so much as the fact that I move data around on the lan or the net the bulk of the time and with the bigger volumes where a CD makes sense, CDs are so cheap I dont care about the cost and they are much more convenient to post, since you dont need to waste any money on more than letter rate and dont need to get it back etc. Each to his/her own I suppose Indeed. They are quite useful if you want a portable mp3 player, but I dont bother with portable music at all, ever. Just wanted to personally thank you in advance for all the help you've provided. Your advice has proven very useful in helping me to choose to switch to DVD media. No problem, thats what these tech groups are all about. My thanks also to everybody else who replied in this thread. Much appreciated. |
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Previously Pan wrote:
On Sun, 29 May 2005 14:36:46 +0000, Arno Wagner wrote: Would any of you say that the DVD standard is now as mature as CD and as safe a bet? Should I hang on to CD's a bit longer, or is it better to migrate to DVD at this stage? From the regular tests of writable DVDs and writers in the german computer magazine c't, I would say that no, writable DVD (with the exception of DVD-RAM) is not there yet. There are still frequent tests where some quality medium and some DVD writers do not work well together and produce unreliable or failed burns. I do scan all written CD's with Nero CD Speed using both the Scandisc and CD quality tests so I hopefully should be able to pick up initially poorly written burns before I consign the DVD to storage. That's assuming that Nero CD-DVD does the same job as CD Speed of course..... My main worry in migrating to DVD's is the potential loss of data over a period of time, That would be my concern also. You need a significanlty better than "reads fine after burning" burn to accomodate ageing. c't does surface analysis with professional equipment after test burns and many combinations of writer/speed/medium are marginal or problematic. The problem is not that there are no good combinations, but that it is difficult to find them. In addition the manufacturers seem to change their media over time and a firmware-upgrade to a writer can make things better or worse so you cannot rely long-term on published test results. Arno |
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